“What?” Kiri asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“You really believed a storm fierce enough to sink a Vushaari corsair came out of nowhere during the season we hardly ever have storms on the Inner Sea? By the gods…you’re even more naïve that I thought.”
Everything crashed down on Kiri at once, and it was too much. It was just too much. “You? You arranged for the Sprite to sink?”
“Well, of course, I did. I-”
“Why, Kaila? Why would you do this? What did I ever do to you?”
“You existed,” Kaila said, her voice developed an edge as her hands clenched into fists. “Do you think I never noticed how everyone fawned over you? Oh, Crown Princess Kiri, she’s so wonderful! She will be a great Queen someday! All while my mother—your own aunt—was little more than a hired hand, being your nanny!” Kaila stopped and visibly worked to regain her control. “Well, I never realized how unfair it was until I was approached one day to act as an agent within Father’s court, but then, it occurred to me. My father was King. I could be the Crown Princess, too. And I thought everything was working so well. After all, you died at sea with the Sprite. Ivarson was maneuvering people he could trust into unit commands in Father’s army. It was all coming together…except for the small fact that Father never named me Crown Princess. I guess I got tired of waiting and decided to take what is my due.”
“Kaila…what happened to you?”
Kaila gazed at Kiri a few moments longer with her dead eyes before she jerked her chin toward the door. “Take her to the cells in the basement. I think I want her close at hand to enjoy my triumph in the capital.”
Gavin returned to camp having scouted the slavers' base with Declan and Sarres and found unexpected guests at the fringe of the wards. Four individuals in armor stood on the northwest edge of the camp. Three were men, one visibly much older, and the red-haired woman's eyes led Gavin to believe hers was a soul that had seen far too much.
“I'd like to know what you think you're doing here,” the older man said. “This is sovereign Vushaari soil.”
Gavin sighed and shook his head. He was not in the mood for pointless posturing. “We're saving a friend from these animals. Back off. By this time tomorrow, they won't be a problem anymore.”
“Just who do you think you are?” the woman asked. “You're one man, and there are at least two hundred slavers down there.”
Gavin stood his ground, eyeing the new arrivals and their equipment. Their armor was blacked out, and a lot of their gear was mismatched. It was only the tattoos on their upper left arms that marked them as Cavaliers.
“You four look like you're on a stealth job,” Gavin said. “What's your interest in that camp?”
“Pike off, wizard,” the woman growled. “You still haven't identified yourself.”
Gavin chuckled, shaking his head. “Such manners...not exactly welcoming on my first trip to your country.” The woman glared at Gavin and moved as if to push through the wards. “I am Gavin Cross, Head of House Kirloth, and I don't recommend trying my wards. I hear death isn't all that pleasant. Now, would you be so kind as to return the favor?”
The older man directed an appraising look at Gavin but held his silence for several more moments. Finally, though, he spoke. “I'm Roth Thatcherson, and it is my honor to serve in the personal detail of King Terris Muran.”
“Thatcherson?” Gavin asked, not able to keep from smiling. “My mentor introduced me to a friend of his named Thatcherson in Tel Mivar, the Royal Priest of Valthon.”
Roth nodded, saying, “He's my older brother. Who is your mentor?”
“Have you ever met a man who went by the name Marcus?”
Roth nodded once more. “Those slavers, or people they work for, managed to spirit away King Terris's younger daughter. They say they will kill Kaila Claymark if he doesn't surrender to the general besieging the capitol.”
“And it's your job to infiltrate the camp and retrieve her before anyone's the wiser?” Gavin asked.
“Yes,” Roth said.
“Your job will be far easier if you join us,” Gavin said. “We just returned from scouting the farm, and I plan to attack just a little before dawn.”
“This is the most far-fetched horse pucky-”
Gavin glared at the woman, his patience used up. “Listen, lady, I don't know what I did to sour your disposition so, but honestly, I don't really care. You stand before scions of the Great Houses of Tel, and it would behoove you to show a little more respect.”
“I have yet to meet one of you freaks worth the shit on my boots,” the woman said, her voice rising, “and I'll not-”
Something in Gavin's eyes drove a spike of fear through Roth Thatcherson's soul. He placed a hand on his comrade's shoulder, saying, “Tanna, that's enough. Stand down.”
“Roth! This is our-”
“Tanna,” Roth said, leaning close but still speaking loud enough for everyone to hear, “I'm trying to save your life. You're no good to the King dead, especially if you bring it on yourself and embarrass him in the process. House Kirloth and the Muran line go back to the Godswar. His family has more history with the King than you ever will.”
Later that night, they sat around a dark fire pit chatting. As close as they were to the slavers, no one was willing to risk being discovered because of a campfire. Mariana, Lillian, Wynn, and Braden sat with the two younger men from the Cavaliers. Declan, Gavin, and Roth sat together, and the elves conversed with the woman.
The sun was just inching below the horizon when a lone figure approached the perimeter of the wards. Gavin looked up and smiled as he recognized her. He stood, walking to the edge of the wards and handed her a ward-stone he had prepared while conversing with Roth.
The woman stepped through the wards and approached the camp. Everyone looked up at her arrival.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Gavin said, “this is one of my agents infiltrating the slavers. She will be providing us valuable information.”
Over the next couple hours, the woman briefed everyone present on the guard shift rotations, sentry paths, and where Kiri were precisely located. Gavin and his friends noticed she made a point of not identifying the friend Gavin had come to rescue.
“That is all I can tell you,” she said finally, “except for one last part. Your new associates won’t like this.”
“Oh? How so?” Gavin asked.
“Kaila Claymark wasn’t abducted from the palace. She left of her own accord, using the ploy of abduction to set up an alibi for her. She is allied with Ivarson and is running the slaver camp below as we speak.”
“What?” Roth said, his eyes wide. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you should think very carefully about maligning the daughter of Vushaar’s king.”
Gavin shifted his attention to Roth, saying, “Calm yourself, Cavalier. If you have a problem with her, you have a problem with me.” Gavin turned his attention back to his associate. “Can you arrange for Kaila to be in the same cell as our associate?”
“Easily, milord.”
“See to it, then, and gather yourself and anyone else you want spared in there as well. I will begin the attack just before dawn, and except for whomever is inside that cell, only slaves and horses will leave here tomorrow.”
Chapter 19
Gavin stood on a small knoll just beyond the perimeter of the plantation. The first rays of the sun were just starting to peak over the horizon to the east, and his friends and the Cavaliers stood arrayed behind him. In his hands, Gavin held the rough diagram of the plantation the woman had drawn the night before.
“The barn has been converted into a barracks,” Gavin said, more to himself than anyone present. “That has to go first.”
Gavin’s next actions surprised all those watching. He knelt to one knee and bowed his head. “I am not an overly-religious man, but Bellos, I ask thee for the strength and will necessary to see these events through. My plan is a far-greater working of the Art than any I
have ever attempted, but the life of someone very dear to me is in danger. If I must trade my life to see her safely home, then I gladly make that offer. Please, help me see her home.”
Gavin took a deep breath and pushed himself back to his feet. He ran through his mind every mental image he could envision of what might have happened to Kiri had his Wraiths not infiltrated these slavers. The anger and rage stoked the fires of his soul once more and provided a barrier against the pain he knew would be coming. Then, he cleared his mind of everything but the anger, rage, and a crystal-clear image of his intent. Gavin next spoke three Words of Power, blending them together to form one long polysyllabic Word, “Luhrhym-Rhyskaal-Idluhn.”
The resonance of the composite effect struck Lillian, Braden, Wynn, and Mariana so hard and so fast that they collapsed to their knees and retched, almost blacking out. As she fought to keep from retching again, Lillian wondered what in all creation could have required that much power. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.
A small, swirling storm was developing around the barn-barracks. Dirt, rocks, slavers, fence-posts, weeds, water-troughs, and more were caught up in a maelstrom. The walls of the barn started to cave inward, and the crack of the roof’s spine was audible even at Gavin’s distant position when it broke and began drawing in as well. The swirling cloud pulled tighter, tighter, and had anyone present possessed the proper knowledge, the space around the barn would’ve evinced an eerie similarity to the event horizon of a black hole.
While the barn and most things surrounding it continued to swirl into a tighter and tighter sphere, the slave pens and slaves within them—not thirty feet away—remained untouched, though the slaves were doubtless terrified by the maelstrom from which they could not run.
The maelstrom at last reached a kind of critical mass, and with a crack like that of lightning, the maelstrom exploded in a shower of dirt, rocks, wood, people…well…pieces of people, and various other bits. A rather large spar that had once been part of the roof’s rafters flew toward Gavin like a guided missile, but Gavin stood his ground and watched its flight with nonchalance. Just as the others were registering the danger and starting to dive aside, the spar struck an unseen barrier and fell to the ground in a pile of what looked like saw dust.
An eyeball fell out of the sky and landed about three feet to Gavin’s left with a soft squish. Gavin turned his head and regarded the item in silence for a few moments.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that the garrison is no longer a problem. Now, it’s time to deal with the house and what perimeter patrols remain.”
Gavin pulled the handkerchief that held a few drops of Kiri’s blood from the sleeve of his robe. He held the handkerchief in his left hand with his fingers and thumb touching the dried blood, and he concentrated on the intent of seeing Kiri. He then spoke the Word of Power to re-create a scrying sphere, “Klaepos.”
The sphere shimmered into existence on Gavin’s right, and it showed an image of Kiri and a number of others huddled in a small cell, their expressions terrified. A blond woman lay off to one side unconscious, bound, and gagged.
At seeing Kiri, Gavin felt his anger start to wane, but it was too soon; there was still too much left to do. Gavin looked to the plantation house, and by now, a number of people were milling about on the veranda, probably rather concerned about the recent lack of a barracks. Gavin focused on them, pushed through his mind images of the despicable acts those people had done, and he managed to hold on to his rage.
Gavin took a deep breath and slowly released it. He ran through the sequence of everything he wanted to happen, picturing each event individually before weaving them together as one. Once he was confident in his focus, Gavin took another deep breath. The two Words he wanted to use were already on the tip of his tongue, and he spoke them, “Sykhurhos-Idluhn.”
The severe resonance of Gavin’s previous composite effect served as a bit of a buffer, and this new invocation did not savage his fellow wizards. Still, this invocation’s raw power rattled their bodies and souls and struck the breath from their lungs.
In the scrying sphere, the stone blocks of the cell took on a soft-white radiance just moments before red lines of power drew across every seam of the house, such as between shingles or pieces of paneling. The lines grew in radiance until they made it almost impossible to face the house before they seemed to wink out, and for a very brief instant, the slaver camp was pure calm. The next instant, the plantation house exploded. The instant after that, all that remained was a starburst blast pattern centered on a stone cube with an iron cell door in one side.
Gavin nodded once and said, “Okay, people, fan out. There should be at least one survivor somewhere down there, and I want that survivor. Once we have one confirmed, kill any more you find.”
“How dare you!” Tanna said. “This is sovereign Vushaari soil, and any survivors we find will face the King’s justice!”
Gavin turned, and everyone recoiled from what they saw. Gavin’s flesh was now the pallor of death. His eye sockets were sunken and dark, as if he’d gone months without sleep, and his eyes themselves looked dead, devoid of that tell-tale spark of life.
“Do as I say,” Gavin said, “or you can tout the King’s justice in the halls of the dead. The choice is yours.”
Tanna bristled and drew in a fresh breath, but Roth placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned close to her right ear.
“Tanna, you mean nothing to him right now, and the King’s jurisdiction here even less,” Roth whispered so low only she could hear him. “Do as he says.”
Tanna ground her teeth together and glared at Gavin. “Fine. Have it your way now, but sometime, you’ll get yours. I swear it.”
Gavin turned and walked off the knoll toward the distant stone cube.
“Declan, I’ll need you to pick the lock on that cell,” Gavin said over his shoulder. “The rest of you, find me a survivor.”
Kiri looked up at the sound of the lock clicking. The door swung open, and she couldn’t keep from smiling at seeing Declan standing in the doorway. But something was wrong, and it took her a few moments to process what the wrongness was. Sunlight shouldn’t be streaming into the cell from the doorway; there used to be a stone wall with sconces about six feet from the cell door. Curiosity overcame her fear, and Kiri walked outside her cell for the first time in a day and a half. She walked into a wasteland.
The plantation house possessed a well-manicured lawn when she entered the building that would become her short-lived prison, having flower beds and shrubbery arrangements as well. It was all gone now, both the house and the landscaping, given way to a blast pattern unlike anything Kiri had ever seen before. The barn was gone, too. There was not even any debris large enough to say for certain that it was from the house, the picket fence, or the barn.
“By the gods…” Kiri managed to say, little more than an empowered whisper. “They…the wizards did this for me?”
Declan watched her with care, paying special attention to her reaction and state of mind. He needed to see her honest response to his next words. “No. He did this…alone and unaided.”
“Gavin did…” Kiri’s left hand shot out, grabbing Declan’s right wrist. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
Declan couldn’t decide whether to credit his years as a bard and that love of acting and entertaining or his years as a Wraith, but he knew Kiri saw no hint of his relief and happiness that he had not seen disgust or revulsion in her reaction.
“He’s near what used to be the barn,” Declan said, gesturing with his left thumb. “As for whether he’s okay, that remains to be seen.”
Kiri moved to one side and saw a number of people had already gathered in what had been the center of the plantation, including the woman who had protected her on the ride back here. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a woman in matte black leather armor at her side, leading Kaila, and she wondered how she had missed those others moving past her. That, however, didn’t keep her from hurrying
to join them.
Gavin looked down on the sole survivor of his attack on the compound. The man looked to be just slightly older than Gavin himself, with a shaved head and dark eyes, but a hunk of his left forearm had been ripped away, exposing the bones.
“Milord,” a whisper at Gavin’s side drew his attention the woman who had slipped out unseen the night before, “I know you saw the signs of what poor treatment I was unable to prevent, and I thought you should know that he was the one who did it.”
“Is that so?” Gavin asked. When the woman nodded once, Gavin gave the man a dark smile that held no mirth at all. “How poetic, then.”
“Whatever torture you have in mind, you’d better hurry,” the slaver said. “I’m not long for this world.”
“Oh, no,” Gavin said, his voice far more harsh than his fellows had ever heard it. “You see, the whole point of an object lesson is for others to learn from it, and how could anyone learn from this, if no one is left to tell the tale?”
Gavin invoked five Words of Power, “Thyskhahs-Khraezax-Sykhurhos-Thyskhahs-Uhnrys”, and the man began screaming. Everyone watched as the flesh of the man’s left arm withered and blackened to a lifeless husk of its former self across an agonizing period of several seconds.
Once the immediate pain of the transformation receded, the slaver looked back up at Gavin as he gasped for breath.
“Yes, that’s right; you feel completely healthy, aside from what remains of your left arm,” Gavin said. “That’s the only form of healing arcanists can do, you see. It’s one of the uses of Necromancy, taking what is alive and shifting that life force to something else. Honestly, that sort of thing is frowned upon in polite society nowadays; it isn’t all that kind. It was a bit tricky, too, considering that I was healing the rest of you with what life remained in your arm, but I think I managed it rather well.”
“You’re daft as a loon, if you think I’m going to thank you for that or do anything you want,” the slaver said through gasps for air.
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